The present study aims at assessing some practices for increasing the amount of time allocated to students in EFL classrooms. Recently, increasing the student talking time (hence, STT) has become the attention of lots of teachers and pedagogists. For the purpose of the study, a sample of 32 undergraduate students from the English Department, Faculty of Humanities University of Zakho, was selected to assess their abilities to comprehend some pragmatic topics. Dividing the sample into control and experimental groups, the students enrolled in a class of pragmatics were noticed to have some difficulties in understanding such topics, assuming that these topics were new to them. Finally, they were seen as inactive to participate in classroom activities. That is why; some practices, especially group discussions and presentations by students, were conducted to increase the STT. This was an attempt to make the teaching process be a kind of student-centered. By applying the techniques of group discussions and presentations, the researchers followed the methods of observation and evaluation to discover whether different pragmatic topics and vocabularies related to them could be identified and understood easily. In conducting an independent t-test and multiple comparison correlations by SPSS, the results showed that the mean difference was slightly significant in favor of increasing the STT. This means that the STT practices were found to have an observed effect on the comprehension of some pragmatic topics especially presuppositions, the Co-operative Principle, deixis, and reference.

The present study investigates the effect of gender differences on the proxemic behaviors manifested by teachers in Bahdini EFL university classrooms, showing the learners’ attitudes and opinions toward these behaviors. In reference to teaching, much uncertainty still exists about the state of proximity of teachers and students at university level in Kurdistan Region of Iraq; this paper tries to address that. For conducting the study, a sample of 12 male and female teachers and 100 male and female EFL learners from the English Department, School of Languages, University of Zakho, was selected. By adopting Hall’s proxemic zones (1959), a descriptive observation method was utilized to collect data from the teachers and a questionnaire to obtain data from the learners. By using Excel sheets and tabulations, the results showed that the majority of male teachers were in the public proxemic zone while most female teachers were in the social proxemic zone. However, the learners had different views, expressing that teachers should move around the classroom from time to time and stay either social or personal, but not public. Also, the majority of EFL learners had male-male and female-female proxemic attitudes. Finally, the results of this study will help making university teachers and learners be aware of proxemic zones in EFL classrooms because the way teachers and learners behave certainly has influence on the teaching and learning processes.

This study investigates the difference between monolingual (Kurdish) and bilingual (Kurdish-Arabic) speakers as EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners with regard to the use of Language Learning Strategies (LLS). It aims to identify the differences found between the two samples in terms of using the (LLS). A total number of 100 EFL students at Zakho University as Bilinguals and Duhok University as Monolinguals of English Departments of both universities participated in the study. All the participants were third and fourth year undergraduate students from both universities. They were asked to answer a questionnaire on Rebecca Oxford's Strategy Inventory for Language Learning known as SILL. The strategies followed in this paper are the direct ones (memory, cognitive, compensation) and the indirect ones (meta-cognitive, affective, and social) which are highlighted in Oxford (1990). These strategies are chosen for this paper because they are considered to be the most agreed upon ones by many writers in the area of English as a Foreign Language (EFL). The valid and reliable statistical ‘independent t-test’ of SPSS is used to analyze the data. It is hypothesized that the results will show significant differences between the two groups (monolinguals and bilinguals) in their strategies in favour of bilinguals. The results of the research reveal that all strategies are clearly and soundly used by both groups, and surprisingly there is no significant difference between bilinguals and monolinguals with regard to the use of the six strategies. It was also found that there is no significant difference between third and fourth year levels concerning the use of the mentioned strategies, as well as there are two identical favourite lists of LLS for both groups.

It was argued that those learning the language while mingling with the community are better learners than those learning in the academic setting where they only opt to use the academic language. The current small scale study investigates the influence of the setting on two BahdiniKurdish learners of English living in the UK in two different contexts. One of the learners has been learning English in an academic setting, while the other has been learning English through daily interactions with the community in a non-academic setting. Data were collected through interviews and observation. Results revealed that both learn English effectively for the context where their language will be used. However, the academic language learner was capable of expressing himself more than the one learning the colloquial language. The academic leaner could use a variety of strategies to express different situations and had a clearer language than the one learning the colloquial language even though the academic language learner did not mingle with academicians like the colloquial leaner did with the community.

Abstract Throughout the last two or three decades, group work has become a part that cannot be separated from other classroom activities. This research study identifies the different opinions of Kurdish students concerning the advantages and disadvantages of group work in the classroom. The research was conducted on 100 Kurdish university students who had at least two years experience of group work at Universities in Kurdistan (Zakho, Dohuk, Salahaddin, and Sulaimani universities). Anonymously, a questionnaire was completed and its results were submitted by the respondents, hoping that their responses could directly address the research aim. Then, 20 students from the ones who participated in filling in the questionnaire were chosen and interviewed so as to gain as valid and reliable data as possible for the results of the study to be authentic. Thus, a triangulation methodological strategy was followed in this research study to produce valid results. The findings from both instruments revealed that “better communication”, “group work is a mutual interest”, “group members clarify difficult things to each other” and ''it takes a short time to finish a task in group work'' were students’ positive opinions, while “some members prefer to relax and stay silent”, “some members do not like to work”, ''group work is a waste of time as students talk about external things and they cannot reach any agreement' 'and “students depend on each other” were their negative opinions concerning group work. Suggesting further considerable studies on attitudes of students concerning group work, the research concludes.